Method of covering articles with leather

ABSTRACT

Covering leather is fixed to an article by applying a band of an adhesive to the article in the areas where a joint in the covering material occurs. Adhesive is applied to the covering material on the inner faces adjacent the joint to be made and leather expander is applied to a central portion of the leather. The covering material is applied over the article with the adhesive thereon adhering to adhesive on the article and preferably with parts of the inner faces adjacent the joint being adhered to each other, excess adhered parts of the leather being subsequently trimmed back so that a minor ridge only appears at the joint, but skived or butt joints may also be used.

United States Patent [191 Grausch et a1.

[ Dec. 31, 1974 METHOD OF COVERING ARTICLES WITH LEATHER Inventors: Wolfgang Dieter Grausch; David Hugh OHare, both of Auckland,

New Zealand Assignee: Fisher & Paykel Limited, Auckland,

New Zealand Filed: Apr. 18, 1973 Appl. No.: 352,306

Foreign Application Priority Data Apr. 18, 1972 New Zealand 166917 U.S. Cl. 156/83, 69/21, 150/52 M, 156/159, 156/160, 156/215, 156/227,

156/291, 156/304, 156/307,161/108,161/149 Int. Cl. C14b 5/00, C09j 5/02 Field of Search 69/8, 21, 21.5; 74/558, 74/5585; 156/83, 85, 86, 160, 163, 165, 184,185,187, 212, 213, 215, 217, 229, 291, 304, 307, 204, 159, 227; 161/226, 108, DIG. 2, 149; 150/52 M [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,830,236 11/1931 Metz 156/215 X 3,677,845 7/1972 Roberts 156/3 Primary ExaminerWilliam A. Powell Assistant Examiner-Brian J. Leitten Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Holman & Stern [57] ABSTRACT Covering leather is tixed to an article by applying a band of an adhesive to the article in the areas where a joint in the covering material occurs. Adhesive is applied to the covering material on the inner faces adjacent the joint to be made and leather expander is applied to a central portion of the leather. The covering material is applied over the article with the adhesive thereon adhering to adhesive on the article and preferably with parts of the inner faces adjacent the joint being adhered to each other, excess adhered parts of the leather being subsequently trimmed back so that a minor ridge only appears at the joint, but skived or butt joints may also be used.

3 Claims, 5 Drawing Figures METHOD OF COVERING ARTICLES WITH LEATHER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION For various purposes, it is frequently desirable to cover an article with a flexible material and a particular example of this is in connection with a Thomas Splint or a Tauranga Thomas Splint, such as is described in US. patent application Ser. No. 67,958 filed Aug. 28, 1970, now abandoned, in which a metal ring, split in the case of the Tauranga Thomas Splint is covered in a soft material e.g. foamed rubber or foamed urethane and this soft material requires to be covered with a soft leather. However, such covering up until the present, has necessitated a stitching process and this has been found to be time consuming, the whole process of covering the ring of a Tauranga Thomas Splint with leather taking approximately 2 hours even with skilled workers.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method of covering articles and/or articles so covered which will enable the time of covering to be reduced and which will result in a product at least as good as a stitched product but which can be produced more quickly or which will at least provide the public with a useful choice.

Accordingly in one aspect the invention consists in a method of covering the articles with a covering material, said method comprising the steps of applying a band of a suitable adhesive to the article at positions where it is desired that a joint in the covering material should occur, preparing the covering material in a manner such that inner faces adjacent the edges of the covering material adjacent a joint between such edges can be contacted to each other when the covering material covers the article, applying adhesive to the covering material adjacent the edges to be jointed so that the parts which contact each other, have adhesive applied to them and the parts of the covering material which contact the adhesive on the article, have adhesive applied to them, applying the covering material in the article in a taut condition and so that the article the cover adheres to the article on the area to which the adhesive has been applied and the parts of the cover adjacent the edges are contacted and adhered to each other and subsequently trimming back excess adhered parts of the cover so that a minor ridge appears at the joint.

In a further aspect the invention consists in a method of covering articles with leather, said method comprising the steps of applying to portions of the leather, a leather expanding solution and applying to other portions of the leather, an adhesive and then applying the leather to the article, stretching the leather while still wetted by the leather expander and adhering the leather to the article and/or itself so that on the leather expanding solution drying a taut leather covered article results.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a padded ring of a Tauranga Thomas Splint FIG. 2 is a perspective cross section to a larger scale of part of the ring shown in FIG. 1 during the covering process FIG. 3 is a plan view of part of the covering material showing the bands of leather expander and adhesive applied thereto FIG. 4 is a cross section as FIG. 2 but showing excess material cut off to complete the covering process and FIG. 5 is a perspective cross section of a skived joint during the covering process.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS In the preferred form of the invention a covering for an article comprising in the preferred form the split ring of a Tauranga Thomas Splint is provided as follows.

As is known, for example, from US. patent application Ser. No. 67,958, filed Aug. 28, 1970, now abandoned, the Tauranga Thomas Splint ring 1 comprises a metal core 2 about which is provided a foamed rubber or plastics material surround 3, for example, a foamed rubber surround about 1 inch in diameter except near the ends where semi-cylindrical portions 4 are provided which in use are overlapped. This ring is covered with a covering material 5 which in the preferred form of this invention comprises a soft leather strip applied in the following way.

On the ring 1 adjacent the area at which the join is to be formed, a band 6 of a suitable adhesive is applied in a band about 1 inch wide along the circumference of the ring. A strip of leather 7 (FIG. 3) is prepared by being cut to a size such that when wrapped around the ring, the ends of the ring may be contacted with inner surfaces 8 in contact with each other, such contacting inner surfaces being about 1/2 inch wide. The leather strip 7 is then further prepared by applying to a central portion 9, a leather expander and on either side of the leather expander applying to the areas 10 of the covering material, a layer of a contact adhesive. Preferably dry areas 11 are provided which are quite narrow and which separate the adhesive from the leather expander but due to capillary attraction this is not always possible. The areas 10 are wider than the area 8 so that some of the adhesive on areas 10 will contact some of the ad hesive on area 6 of the ring. When these steps have been effected the covering material may be applied to the prepared ring by stretching the leather around the ring and then pressing the inner surfaces 8 adjacent the edges to each other by pinching the outer surface of the loop so made, until the inner surfaces 8 of the leather contact each other close in to the rubber material on the ring. This stretching, pinching and pressing is continued as a result of which the covering material is applied in a taut condition and is held by engagement of the adhesive coated surfaces 10 of the covering material in part to the adhesive coated surface 6 of the rubber part of the ring and in part by the parts 8 of the covering material which adhere to each other. This is continued until the whole length of the ring has been so covered and the leather expander is then allowed to dry, which further tightens the leather material onto the ring. At some stage after jointing is completed, the excess cover material is trimmed so that only a small ridge 11 (FIG. 4) for example, 3/32 inch high is left; the excess parts of the cover which are adhered to each other are then discarded.

The invention also envisages a construction shown in FIG. 5 in which a skived overlapped joint is made and again adhesive is applied to a part 12 of the article,

leather expander is applied to a central portion 13 of the covering leather between the limits l4 and 15 which has one internal surface 16 adjacent an edge and one external surface 17 adjacent the opposite edge, skived or bevelled and adhesive is applied to the skived surfaces and on the interior surfaces up to the limits 18 and 19 respectively again separated as accurately as possible by spaces 20 and 21 from limits 14 and 15. The inner surface under the outer skived surface is then adhered to a part of the ring which has adhesive applied to it, the leather is then stretched around the article and the other skived, contacted with the inner skived surface to which an adhesive has been applied and the skived surfaces finally pressed together and wiped down. In this case, no excess material is cut off the covering material but of course, more accurate cutting and stretching is necessary to get an accurate fitting.

Similarly, butt or other joints may be made but clearly the first described preferred form has advantages in ensuring adequate holding during the early stages.

The foregoing method and construction, results in a product which has considerable advantages principally in that whereas previously it took approximately 2 hours to fix a covering material to a Tauranga Thomas ring by sewing, it is now possible to apply the adhesive and fix the covering material in place in approximately 20 to 25 minutes and this, without using any mechanical aid by way of adhesive applicators and so on. It is possible that by use of stencils and sprays for the adhesive and leather expander, the times could be considerably reduced.

A contact adhering on both adhering surfaces as above described, is preferred but other adhesive and adhering surfaces may be used e.g. involving coating only one surface with adhesive and/or using other adhering methods as desired.

We claim:

1. A method of covering articles with leather, said method comprising the steps of: applying a band of a suitable adhesive to the article at positions where it is desired that a joint in the leather should occur; preparing the leather in a manner such that inner faces adjacent the edges of the leather adjacent a joint between such edges can be contacted to each other when the leather covers the article; applying adhesive to the leather adjacent the edges to be joined so that the parts which contact each other have adhesive applied to them and the parts of the leather which contact the adhesive on the article have adhesive applied to them; applying to portions of the leather intermediate said edges a leather-expanding solution; applying the leather to the article in a taut condition so the leather adheres to the article at the area to which the adhesive has been applied and the parts of the leather adjacent the edges are contacted and adhered to each other, whereby when the leather is applied to the articles in the taut condition it is stretched while still wetted by the leather expander so that when the leather-expanding solution dries a very taut leather-covered article results.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 comprising the further step of trimming back the excess adhered parts of the leather so as to form a minor ridge along the joint.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 comprising the further step of bevelling the surfaces of the edges which are to contact each other so that a smooth joint is formed. 

1. A method of covering articles with leather, said method comprising the steps of: applying a band of a suitable adhesive to the article at positions where it is desired that a joint in the leather should occur; preparing the leather in a manner such that inner faces adjacent the edges of the leather adjacent a joint between such edges can be contacted to each other when the leather covers the article; applying adhesive to the leather adjacent the edges to be joined so that the parts which contact each other have adhesive applied to them and the parts of the leather which contact the adhesive on the article have adhesive applied to them; applying to portions of the leather intermediate said edges a leather-expanding solution; applying the leather to the article in a taut condition so the leather adheres to the article at the area to which the adhesive has been applied and the parts of the leather adjacent the edges are contacted and adhered to each other, whereby when the leather is applied to the articles in the taut condition it is stretched while still wetted by the leather expander so that when the leather-expanding solution dries a very taut leather-covered article results.
 2. The method as claimed in claim 1 comprising the further step of trimming back the excess adhered parts of the leather so as to form a minor ridge along the joint.
 3. The method as claimed in claim 1 comprising the further step of bevelling the surfaces of the edges which are to contact each other so that a smooth joint is formed. 